


Bulletproof

by brooklinegirl



Category: Dirty Sexy Money
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 20:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklinegirl/pseuds/brooklinegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the boxathon challenge: Well-kept secrets only stayed well-kept under a very close eye in the world of the Darlings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bulletproof

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to soundslikejai for beta work and catching my subliminal typos!

They've been doing this for so many years without talking about it – they fight and they fuck – that they don't know how to do it any other way. Everyone knew who the Darlings were, and everyone knew who Nick's father had been. It was what everyone _didn't_ know that was the glue that kept the Darling family together – well-kept secrets only stayed well-kept under a very close eye in the world of the Darlings.

And the well-kept secrets were this:

Patrick Darling did transvestites.

Juliet and Jeremy Darling did each other – or Nick wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that they did, at least.

Leticia Darling, apparently, did Nick's father – something which he had been very surprised to find out about, but perhaps shouldn't have been.

Especially given that Nick George did Brian Darling, and that was the best kept secret of all – or Nick sincerely hoped it was.

It had been screwed up enough before, but it was ten times more so now. And if Nick could stop doing Brian – or Brian could stop doing Nick – things would - well, things would still be screwed up, but on a somewhat more manageable level.

It felt like they had always been doing this, forever. Nick was a together guy who knew himself pretty well – knew where he was going, knew what he wanted, knew what he was doing – but he couldn’t stop doing this. This was something beyond any logic he had control over, because he hated Brian Darling more than he had words to describe. Everybody hated Brian Darling, even the people who loved him. He was just that kind of a guy.

Nick was brought abruptly back to the present as Brian slammed him up against the wall of the foyer, and then again, harder this time. You'd think someone would come running at some point, only this was just par for the course in the Darling family, wasn't it? It would take something much more alarming than this for anyone to come looking.

Nick was trying to catch his breath, his hands clenched hard in the shoulders of Brian's shirt, and still, he couldn't say stop.

And hadn't that always been his damn problem?

"Look at you," Brian snarled, right up in Nick's face. Close enough for Nick to see that they both had his dad's eyes, and how long had he been ignoring that fact? "You won't even fight me."

Oh, fuck this. Nick took a breath and as Brian bared his teeth in his twisted version of a smile, Nick hauled back and hit him in the face as hard as he could. Brian still had his grip on Nick's jacket, so they both fell away from the wall, lurching sideways into the side table and sending the expensive vase - and even more expensive, out-of-season flowers - crashing to the tile.

The punch felt good – almost good enough to offset how much it hurt Nick's hand– and he let himself feel it, roll with it, and hit Brian again while he was still off-balance, just to keep the good feeling going.

Brian lost his grip on Nick with the second punch, landing hard on the floor just as a servant entered silently. The servant skirted around Brian's sprawling body and began cleaning up the mess of flowers and vase from the floor without ever once looking at either of them or indicating in any way that he knew they were there, or thought this was unusual.

Brian pushed himself up on one elbow, his palm pressed against his eye where Nick had landed one hell of a punch, if he did say so himself. "Jesus," Brian said, and spat onto the gleaming tile. He tilted his head up to look at Nick. "Fuck, that hurt." He gave Nick a hard, crooked grin. "Do you even know why we're fighting?"

Nick stood there, panting hard, adrenaline a driving force through his veins, staring down at Brian on the floor. "Actually." He took a breath, getting it together. He was a lawyer. He was _not_ a Darling. "Actually, I don't. Here." He reached down a hand to help Brian up.

"Lucky thing I do," Brian spat out, and used Nick's leverage to slam his fist into Nick's face with all of his weight behind it.

The punch exploded into Nick's head, sent him sprawling, dazed, against the wall. Brian landed on top of him before he could even see straight, knocking the breath out of him and – apparently – trying to get his hands around Nick's throat.

"Stop it." Nick slapped at Brian's hands, unable to get a grip on them to push them away. " _Stop_ , already." The adrenaline came back in a rush, and he heaved up, shoving Brian over onto his back and landing on top of him, graceless and not caring. Just pinning him there, struggling against him like they were little kids quarreling in the back yard again, until he finally had Brian's hands pinned above his head.

Brian was spitting curses at him, chest heaving as Nick held him hard against the ground, panting down into his face. He had him, he _had_ him here, pinned and stuck and there wasn't a damn thing Brian could do about it.

Winning felt as good as the adrenaline rush.

"Fucker," Brian gave one more lunge before letting his head fall back with a thump. "You fucker," he breathed out, blinking up at the ceiling past Nick's head, like Nick wasn't even there, like Nick wasn't the one who had beaten him, bested him.

Nick didn't think – that course of action seemed to be working for him here – didn't _let_ himself thing. Fuck it, screw it - nothing ever changed. He released one of Brian's wrists. Brian didn't try to get away, didn't struggle at all, just brought his hand forward to land heavily on the back of Nick's neck, holding on hard enough to almost hurt.

Nick had his free hand curled into Brian's hair, holding on tight enough that he knew it _did_ hurt, forcing his head down, forcing him to look at Nick.

Same crooked smile. Same brown eyes that belonged to Nick. That belonged to their father. "I hate you," Brian said, like he meant it.

Nick held on tighter. "I'm okay with that."

"You would be," Brian said, and then they were kissing, exactly hard enough to hurt, struggling together there on the floor. For an instant, they were back in high school. For an instant, this was the first time, before Lisa, before Karen, even. When it was just Nick and Brian, fighting each other and hating each other and never, ever being able to get away from each other.

It had never changed, in all these years, and Nick decided – for once – that he wasn't going to care. There was too much he had to be careful about, always, and if there was one thing he could trust in, it was that Brian was always going to be an asshole, except for when he wasn't, and that he was always going to fuck Nick, except for when he didn't.

"Come on." Brian had a grip on Nick's shoulder, hauling him up from the floor. Nick stumbled to his feet, bumping the same table and sending the flowers crashing to the floor once more.

"Come _on_ ," Brian said again and he was dragging Nick forward, the two of them skidding on the scattered flowers before Brian found his footing, shoving Nick ahead of him up the stairs, hissing, "Move, _move_."

And Nick did what Brian asked. Because there had apparently come a point in Nick George's life when he realized that even he was helpless against the Darlings, and there wasn't one damn thing he could do about it.

He glanced back only once as the same silent servant came around the corner, carefully not seeing them stagger up the stairs to fuck, in the exact same way he carefully hadn't seen them fighting on the floor. Darling family help knew how to turn a blind eye better than the Darling family itself did.

You did what you had to do in the world of the Darlings.

the end


End file.
